Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples was the state that ruled the southern part of the Italian mainland, south of the Papal States, from 1282 to 1816. It was born when the island of Sicily broke away from the Angevin kings in the War of the Sicilian Vespers, leaving them with the mainland, which they governed from Naples. It was one of the largest Italian states, covering today's Campania, Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise and parts of southern Lazio, and passed in turn under Angevin, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrian and Bourbon rulers.

Southern Italy and Sicily had been united by the Normans in the twelfth century as the Kingdom of Sicily, ruled mainly from Palermo. In 1282 a rebellion on the island drove out Charles of Anjou, and Peter III of Aragon's forces took Sicily. Charles kept the mainland and the old royal title. The Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302 recognised the mainland realm as the Kingdom of Sicily "on this side of the Faro", the lighthouse point on the Strait of Messina, while the island became Sicily "beyond the Faro". Historians call the mainland state the Kingdom of Naples, although that was never its official name.

In the late fourteenth century two branches of the Angevin family fought over the crown, and Queen Joanna I was murdered by her successor, Charles III. His daughter Joanna II named first Alfonso V of Aragon and then members of the rival Angevin line as her heirs. In 1442 Alfonso conquered Naples and ruled both Sicilies. After his death in 1458 Naples passed to his illegitimate son Ferdinand I, while Sicily stayed with the Crown of Aragon.

In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded, citing an inherited Angevin claim, and opened the Italian Wars. The French took Naples briefly in 1495 and again in 1501, when Louis XII agreed to divide the kingdom with Ferdinand II of Aragon. The partners soon fell out, and Spanish troops under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba expelled the French; by 1504 Ferdinand held the whole kingdom. France gave up its claim in 1559 by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis.

For two centuries Naples was governed by Spanish viceroys as part of the Spanish Empire. With about three million inhabitants in 1600, it was Spain's most populous possession outside Castile and a major source of money and soldiers. Heavy war taxes, especially during the war with France from 1635, tripled the tax burden between 1612 and 1646 and drove the state deep into debt. In 1647 the people of Naples rose against the taxes and proclaimed a republic with French help, but Spanish troops suppressed it within the year.

After the War of the Spanish Succession, the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714 gave Naples to the Austrian Habsburg emperor Charles VI. A Spanish army reconquered it in 1734, during the War of the Polish Succession, and Charles, Duke of Parma, a son of Philip V of Spain, ruled Naples and Sicily as king from 1735. When he inherited the Spanish throne in 1759, he left the southern kingdoms to his son Ferdinand IV.

French troops set up the short-lived Parthenopaean Republic in 1799. In 1806 Napoleon made his brother Joseph king of Naples, followed two years later by his brother-in-law Joachim Murat, while Ferdinand held out in Sicily under British protection. After Murat's defeat by Austria at Tolentino in 1815, Ferdinand returned.

Neapolitan, Calabrian and other southern dialects were spoken daily, with Greek- and Albanian-speaking minorities, while Latin and Italian served for writing. Catholicism was the state religion; Jewish communities were largely expelled by edicts in 1510 and 1541. Its scholars included the philosopher Giordano Bruno. In 1816 Naples and Sicily were formally merged as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Our 1530, 1600, 1650, 1700 and 1715 maps label the kingdom simply as Naples, covering the southern Italian mainland. The 1500 map shows the region within Aragon's domains, and the 1783 map already labels it the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the name the merged state took only in 1816.